One of the promotional techniques used by manufacturers and retailers to encourage the purchase of particular products is coupons. Coupons typically offer a monetary discount on the specified product.
There are two types of coupons—manufacturer coupons and store coupons. Manufacturer coupons are distributed by the manufacturer of a particular product and are redeemable by consumers at a variety of retailers that sell the specified products. Store coupons in contrast are distributed by a particular store and may only be redeemed at the specified store.
While store coupons are processed by the store where redeemed, manufacturer coupons are typically processed by a coupon clearinghouse that sort the coupons for particular manufacturers and then submit the data to the manufacturers requesting payment for the coupons along with a processing fee being submitted to the retailers.